Introduction

Understanding the depravity of man plays a pivotal role in understanding not only ourselves but also the whole biblical drama.This study, however, requires us to come to terms with some hard truths about Man and his motives, there might be hard pills to swallow and go against a lot of lies that have been repeated so many times that they start to seem like truth.This article aims to not only challenge the mind and faith of the reader but also to reveal the Truth, that is Christ Jesus. Let's start from the beginning:

The Image Of God?

A point that intensifies the depravity of man is what they were. [Genesis 1:26 ("let Us make man in Our image")], To the ordinary person, especially someone who grew up in a Christian household and has heard this scripture so many times that it lost its meaning, it really seems ordinary but beloved reader, please take this time to really think about this. Man was supposed to reflect the very nature of the Creator of the Universe whose very Essence holds all things together, the very fabric of existance,things seen and unseen,great and small, from the very smallest atom. A Being Holy, Almighty.... the author could go on and on listing His attributes but wouldnt even be able to explain His Majesty in its fullness, our minds can not really fathom or understand His ways, we can only try. "The Great Fall" is an understatement of what we truly lost and the decay we brought into the world. Yes! We brought sin, death and decay into this world because God gave us dominion over everything [Genesis 1:28] and we chose death. From that point and moving forward, the heart of man grew more and more wicked, hating God, the very being they were supposed to be in the image of. Man became nothing like Him and their hearts became hard, like stone, in fact they chose to be the complete opposite. In partnership with rogue former hosts of heaven who also hated the creator and chose to come down to earth and sin, man loved evil and invented new ways of evil and there was only wickedness in ALL their thoughts, and this brings us to one of the most heart shattering texts in the bible, [Genesis 6:5-8 (The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on earth, and His heart was deeply troubled.) like I said, calling it "The Great Fall" is an understatement.

It got to a point where we cant help ourselves, [Jeremiah 17:9 (The heart is deceitful above all things and desparately wicked: who can know it)] we only desired evil and the bible is now filled with our predictable patterns of hatred, lust, sibling rivalry, pride etc. It's easy for the reader to think that the characters in the bible are 'fools', forgetting that we all make the same mistakes today, encouraging self reliance, self confidence, listening to one's heart and self love. We are not to rely on man but must rely on Him, we must not have confidence in ourselves but in Him,we must not listen to our deceitful hearts and finally, we must not be lovers of self neither should we hate ourselves because that is also focused on you, but rather be humble for humility is not thinking less of yourself and self hatred but its thinking of yourself less and thinking of others more.

Among all the stories the bible has to tell, In the midest of all the unrest and chaos,is hope. The actual image of God is the saviour we desparatley need. [Colossians 1:15 (The Son is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation. For in Him all things were created)]. We were made in the image of God but CHRIST IS the image of God, we were made to be like Him. He gave up the Glory he had in the beginning with the Father to come down and show us what it means to be in the image of God and to endure so much hardship and pain even before he was nailed to the cross, all to save the depraved man who hated him and might not even be grateful for the sacrifice he made. He didn't suffer because of anything man might do or might not do or for anything man did, but rather he loved because HE IS LOVE. We ought to be like Him and remain in Him because He is the true Image we are supposed to be in, [John 15:5], He is the true vine, we must remain in him because apart from Him we are nothing.